The Kite Runner

General Taheri as a Foil to Baba

KTERUN-T6ABJI

Highlight the passage from chapter 13 that reinforces the idea that General Taheri serves a foil character to Baba.

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I learned that he could be petty, such as when he’d take a bite of the *qurma*his wife placed before him, sigh, and push it away. “I’ll make something else,” Khanum Taheri would say, but he’d ignore her, sulk, and eat bread and onion. This made Soraya angry and her mother cry. Soraya told me he took antidepressants. I learned that he had kept his family on welfare and had never held a job in the U.S., preferring to cash government-issued checks than degrade himself with work unsuitable for a man of his stature -- he saw the flea market only as a hobby, a way to socialize with his fellow Afghans. The general believed that, sooner or later, Afghanistan would be freed, the monarchy restored, and his services would once again be called upon. So e​very day, he donned his gray suit, wound his pocket watch, and waited.​